the handles of their knives, walking-staffs, and
hung from their necks in beads, and small shotlike
balls of it were fastened to their hair.
In addition to their short broad-bladed spears,
the Wavinza were armed with small but strong
bows, the strings of which were formed of
strips of the rattan cane. The arrows are about
a foot in length, made of reeds, pointed and
smeared with vegetable poison. The Wavinza
do not employ iron heads. It requires a peculiar
skill for these weapons. The Wanyamwezi
bowmen were unable to shoot the arrows farther
than from fifty to seventy yards. An aboriginal,
smiling at their awkwardness, shot an arrow a
distance of 200 yards. The natives boast that the
slightest scratch1 is sufficient to doom even an
elephant, for it is by this means they have been
able to obtain ivory for Molemba-lemba (Dugumbi
of Nyangwe).
Blood-brotherhood being considered as a
pledge of good-will and peace, Frank Pocock
and the chief went through the ordeal, and we
interchanged presents.
From this village a path leads to Meginna
and Miango, near the Urindi river, on the south
side of which the Arabs say there is abundance
of coal, “ very black and shining.” A path also
leads north-east to Kirari, four hours’, and Ma-
kongo, seven hours’ distance from Kampunzu.
They also say that a two months’ journey eastrNov.
19, 1876.1 THE “ LIVINGSTONE.” i8 7
[The Lualaba. I
n o r t h - e a s t (magnetic) would bring us “ “ pe“
country, where there is abundance of cattle.
The women of Uregga wear o n l y aprons
. inches square, of bark or grass cloth, fastened
£y cords of palm fibre. The men wear skins
of civet, or monkey, in front and rear, the tads
downwards. It may have been from » t a i
glance of a rapidly disappearmg form <*°“ of
these people in the wild woods that native
travellers in the lake regions felt persuaded that
they had seen “men with tails. TT
The ficus trees, which supply Uganda, Unya-
mwezi, Ukonongo, Goma, and Uregga with
bark-cloth, register the age of the respective
settlements where they are found, and may be
said to be historical monuments of the people
which planted them. In Uddu-Uganda, especially
in Southern Uddu, I saw patriarchs which must
have been four or five hundred years old. If a
cloth-producing ficus is 2 feet in diameter, it
may be regarded as a monument of antiquity;
one 10 inches in diameter as over a hundred
years old; one 6 inches in diameter as over
forty years. The oldest tree of this species in
Southern Uregga that I saw could not have
exceeded eighty years.
On the 19th a march of five miles through
the forest west from Kampunzu brought us to
the Lualaba, in south latitude 30 35', just forty-
one geographical miles north of the Arab depot